Broken, no hope

I woke with chest pains last night and couldn't get back to sleep. Part of me was hoping it was the end but all it did was make me completely exhausted and unproductive at work today.

New pdoc today he is starting me on Brintellix.

Therapist visit today also.

Both of them told me that after what happened on Friday I am entitled to feel bad, to grieve. I know that and I've always accepted grieving into my life as a part of the ups and downs of life. The difference this time is that I have no hope left no hope that when the grieving ends there will be anything positive to look forward too.

People tell me there is always hope but my 54 years of experience with this with 100% painful results and NEVER a good outcome tell me otherwise and even if the 55th year is the charm that can't happen since I refuse to try again. This last attempt left me broken and suicidal. The journey and the result are both painful for me. It seems to be both the way I am built and my fate for always a bad outcome. Last time I said I would never try again but I did and it left me suicidal. I would have done it last night if it weren't so close in time to someone who would likely take direct blame. If I'm still in this much pain in a few weeks so that the event might be distanced in someone's mind I may just go through with it.

I will give the Brintellix a chance but what if it makes me feel better enough to fool myself that I should try again and I end up in all of this pain again?

Hi Dexter,
You are entitled to feel the way you feel. My hopes are with you.
I hope the new medication helps you. I do not know if I can help you in any way. I have some "no longer" and "never again" because of a physical disability I acquired long time ago. I know for sure that probably I will never be able ---- [fill the blank] (again)
It could be quite depressing sometimes.
One thing that sometimes helps me is focusing on the present moment. Because, all in all, when I think "I will never ..." I am thinking of the future. But future never "is". What it is, it is in the present. What I say it may sound stupid but sometimes it works. It is kind of discipline. i have to have self discipline in order not to engage in the "routine" of focusing on the future in a way it is harmful. It is not easy because I am impulsive and mostly driven by feelings. But I am improving little by little with ups and downs.
Hope this is helpful. I am sending you a hug

Thank you Clara

hope is subjective right dexter...
we have to create our hope from nothing...
i dont think its something that is given to us...
i think its subjective...
im sorry you are struggling...
stay strong... maybe the brintellix will help a little...
maybe just to create a little hope?
think about all the things that seem impossible but happen anyway...
know what i mean..? stay strong time to fight some more...

(((hugs)))

(((((((( ))))))))

I wish I had the right words to speak right now Dexter. All I can say is that my heart hurts for you and i hope that you will keep reaching out to us. I hope that the new med proves more effective than you are imagining at this point in time.

Can't strop crying I had been doing better but today just crying at my desk and working solitary until I couldn't take it anymore and I just ran out the door after lunch. I got a email from my manager that he is worried about me. i emailed back not to worry. he said in the morning he could tell i was down and wnated me to stay so he could keep an eye on me. I know he meant well but that festered all day so he wants to keep an eye on me because he is my friend for 8 hours during the workday but then everything can go to hell during the rest oft he 16 hours in the day or over the weekend. i can't play my music at work because there was an issue so i had it on very quietly today but then a few desks down there is horrible loud music playing drowning out mine. why isnt THAT an issue, because i won't complain? it was giving me a headache so i just left. i'm onan antidepressant now so now i feel i am beginnin g a fight for my recovery but i don't have the wherewhithal to fight this again i am supposed to have a support system to help me with this fight but i don't have one i am all alone and it doesnt matter if i can do it alone i don't want to try. i pulled out my very old drawing of my support system from the last time i was hospitallized years ago and none of it is around any more... family died friends moved away or drifted away no one around any more.

can you use headphones or earbuds for the music..?

i was looking through my hospital papers just now too... i was so doped up geez...
but i guess it was distracting me from the severe anxiety and depression :/ even though i was writing notes that i was still feeling depressed and anxious.. weird stuff... looking back on that stuff

we try to support each other here... might not be as good as having a friend sit with you and watch a movie or whatever ya know... but i take what i can get anymore..

i try to focus on the recovery... i slip up ALOT and i dont know anyone that doesnt but i try to be kind and gently remind myself to re-focus as soon as i catch myself... its fighting a wildfire with coals on a dry super hot day sometimes... seem to take 3 steps back and stumble forward an inch sometimes.. but sometimes we take 3 steps forward too right..?
i have focus issues... but i try to focus as best i can on good things...

when i was in the hospital they made me write a wellness recovery action plan before they would release me... of course i just quickly jotted stuff down because i wanted to get out of there fast so i could smoke a cig and relax away from people :x
but reading through the plan i wrote some good things i guess... had to be good or they would of made me re do it i guess i was thinking ?
i was grilled with 8 group meetings a day though so...(and i really dont like being around so many people, especially people i dont know...) everytime i would cry or slip or something they would re-enforce me with positivity and try to change my thought patterns... have you looked at that? WRAP is . . . | MentalHealthRecovery

they would make me tell them 1 good thing about myself, atleast 1 good thing.. but they would try to get me to do more, i just couldn't sometimes :/

can you tell me 1 good thing about you...? something positive that you like..?

I want to say something and offer support. I wish I could help or do something. But Right now, I can just offer internet hugs, and maybe some understanding.

It's hard when you don't have a support system. Being here helps me. I know I'm not alone in what I feel. You aren't either.

dexter I am upset that you are feeling so awful...I hope the new med helps you...

Thank you ES they used to let us use headphones which I was using after my music became a problem. A few years ago the boss decided he didn't like everyone in the dept wearing headphones (I agreed with him but I wore mine since everyone else was). So that stopped and now eveyone just puts music on their computer speakers to create a cacophony of crap in the room.

I have a WRAP plan it isn't helping me now. In the hospital the focus of all of my group meetings was getting me out of my shell, to stop worrying about how I was alone and instead change my plan of action so that I wouldn't be alone anymore. I was terribly shy (I still am) so they gave me skills to help me get out and talk to people. I review those notes often. I spent the ten years after hospital working on those plans, getting out more, meeting more gay people, socializing, trying to talk to people I was attracted to.

Discovered - a) I'm not that attracted to all that many people (and no I'm not picky) and b) no one is attracted to me. Not people I don't suspect and anyone I think I attracted to me turns out I am mistaken and heartbreak ensues. 100%

There are a lot of good things about myself. I'm very smart, I'm very funny I'm very likable I'm very good hearted. I like myself and I like being by myself and I like doing things by myself. I'm loving and nurturing and not afraid to put my emotions out there under appropriate circumstances. I spent my entire life liking that about myself, not caring that I was alone, and thinking that if someday somebody found me then it would be meant-to-be and would work out.

Years later I found myself surprisingly heartbroken after thinking someone was interested in me (I was totally wrong) and realized that something inside me had changed and that I wanted to be with someone. That led to a depressed period and to my hospitalization during which I learned that if I wanted someone I couldn't sit idle and wait for someone to find me.

That brings me back to the top of my story where I've since learned that not only will someone not find me but no one seems to want to find me and no one wants me if I find them.

All of the qualities I've listed above makes me an excellent friend but apparently nothing more. Twice in my life they've led people to me in situations that I thought were loving situations but turned out to be merely friendships and nothing more. If I had never been teased maybe I'd be happy to be a lone, completely asexual loner. And I'm not interested in sex, I'd just like someone here when I;m happy and here when I'm struggling to help me share my happiness and share my struggles. I need a support system to help me though this depression and with my other medical issues and if I couldn't find someone when I was healthy I certainly can't even look for anyone while I'm physically or mentally ill. The depression has built a wall around me to protect myself but my 10 years of sobriety tells me that there isn't anything magical outside of the wall waiting for me either.

I read here about everyone's bad relationships current struggles with family and past failures with relationships friendships and marriages. I do not discount those or the pain they have caused and do cause but I have had no such failures in my entire life, I've never gotten off the ground, so no one can convince me that something suddenly is going to happen for me when I'm 60 and dying.

Someone in the chat room tried to tell me that relationships aren't all good and I'd like to hear from someone who can tell me that it is at all healthy to spend one's entire life backwards and forwards alone not talking about a sexual relationship (although that too) but not a single emotional relationship or someone to share with or count on emotionally in times or darkness or times of recovery and wellness.

Thinking of this under my depression has been causing constant emotional pain and all I can hope for in treatment and with medication is that I might go back to a time when I am not suffering from this burden constantly and can sometimes just forget about how alone I am and go back to functioning like an automaton and laughing at sitcoms on TV and enjoying going out to movies by myself or going to social groups and interacting and not minding when everyone else leaves with their mates and I go home alone but right not that is not a life I choose for myself.

And holy **** I am in a bad place, I came home from work and went to sleep and realize that the nausea from the new medication is kicking in. Maybe the sleepiness is from this too. Oh joy.

A friend called me this evening and made me feel a little better temporarily. I told him I wish he was here to give me a hug and he was sympathetic.

I need to grieve over the "loss" I experienced on Friday. I didn't lose a friend but I lost a great source of hope in that friend. Both my therapist and my new pdoc told me I shouldn't think it bad to feel very sad over this, it was a huge loss and I should be grieving. My friend that I spoke to tonight told me the same thing. It is so difficult because he is also a coworker, I have to see him and work with him every day, and I can't let him see how much pain I am in over this. So yesterday I had to work with this friend and hide my pain completely, today my manager and my boss and coworkers saw that I am in so much pain that I couldn't function, I was able to chalk that up to nausea from the new medication (which wasn't true... the nausea didn't hit me until several hours after I came home) and nobody there can know the true source of all of my pain. Not that it's any of their business anyway.

Ginger or mint tea works wonders for nausea - I only discovered this for myself about 2 years ago. Maybe that would help?

I'm very much alone, too, Dex, which I appreciate most of the time. Except when it comes to house stuff. I do have friends and I guess they would be there in times of need but that's exactly when I don't engage with them. I wish I could lend them to you.

I had a great aunt who didn't marry until she was 60, who I only knew as a kid but wish I could know more of her story. Pretty atypical for her generation, especially.

I know what it's like to lament the future - it's an awful symptom of depression. I understand the suicidal ideation as well. I'm so very sorry you are going through it, but very glad you now have help. One day at a time!

Hugs.

are you eating when you take the medicine..?

keep those positive things in your mind and heart, it is important not to lose them

i completely understand the heartbreak... anniversaries ... blah... but we shall prevail...
she doesnt know what she's missing...
i think there is someone out there for you... like you im shy, chronically so.. not really shy, i just dont open up or talk with people, i will mirror people but... i dont get comfortable with people ... i guess thats part of the avpd stuff...

you are male right?
have you tried online communities?
also are you open about your sexual preference...?
my cousin came out and ever since he did he seems alot happier... he met a guy, not so shy anymore and pretty radical changes...
his boyfriend is from newjersey i think. .. so he has family up there, and my cousin is pretty involved in lgbt communities... maybe i can ask him if he knows anyone up there that you might be interested in meeting? i wouldn't mind at all...

if you want i will email him and see whats up i dont think he would mind me asking... cant hurt to ask right?
everyone should have a companion... atleast i think eventually its really nice to have one... i know if i had a companion it would boost my happy levels to OVER 9000!!!!! hehe little joke

relationships can be a pain.. but it takes 2, if both are working for the same thing it can be amazing

honestly the wrap thing never really helped me :/
i tried to follow it for like a month but im just a stubborn mule... i gotta do things my own way

hope you feel a little better in the morning... :

Believe me I've spent thirteen years trying everything to help this. My hospitalization when I tried to commit suicide was in a Pride center--a psych hospital for gay people--and they encouraged me to try to get out more and to be more proactive in finding some friends and a possible relationship. I've joined tons of communities (it's either men looking for immediate sex... I'm not at all interested in jumping into bed with some guy) or no one shares my interests or is even interested in me. I;ve joined groups related to my hobbies hoping to find someone to talk to (I've found pllenty of guys to talk too... None of them interested in anything more than talking with me) and yes i'm open everyone at work and in my life and on social media knows I"m gay. I don't flaunt it but I don't hide it. I've tried going to bars it's not enjoyable at all to me (and again, just guys looking for quick sex) and out dancing and never found anyone interested in me. (in spite of the fact that I think I am a good dancer and often get compliments... at weddings lots of girls always want to dance with me. But no guys ever want to come back to my room with me let alone get to know me after the event. I don't know what is wrong with me... I think I'm a smart, funny guy who would be good in a relationship and projects that when I meet people, and it seems like people see that... but only as a friend.

I wouldn't mind meeting your cousin and friends but of course not while I'm in the depth of this depression (unless they're understanding... I can't look for a relationship now but I could look for some understanding friends). Also given this past weekend there's no way I can safely put myself in a position of hoping for something again. I thought I was OK but seriously this almost killed me this weekend.

I was going to stay home today but I am awake so I am going to try to go in to work today. Yesterday was a disaster but I think if I stay home again it is going to cause trouble.

im going to contact my cousin and ask him, my memory is bad but i believe his bf is from new jersey so i'll find out

you have a few years on me.. but i know how it feels to feel like no one wants anything to do with you... i've never had a relationship before - still a virgin - and not really all that interested in just sex, i want a friend.. someone that will be my best friend and sex could just be a + ya know?
not something thats super important to me :/ i cant lay with someone i dont love so...

its not easy for me to go out though, i think its good that you go out and try atleast, i beat myself up because sometimes i feel like if i tried harder maybe i could meet someone, like you said im a kind compassionate smart interesting individual that really isn't ugly.. i dont think im ugly.. i mean obviously i dont think im sexy, but i feel like girls should be attracted to me - maybe i am more good looking than i think and girls just get nervous around me ? heh probably not though, im a loner...

i dont think a relationship/companionship will cure my depression but i think it would help for some reason, its one thing i havent tried.. would be nice to have someone that i can be me with

so i totally feel where you are coming from
i wish these things were easier :/

i hope i didnt offend you by saying anything, wasn't trying to say you just have to try.. or anything like that..

im going to email him now.. i'll send you a pm with his reply instead spamming your thread

hang in there mate...

Thank you elevatedsoul... I found nothing to offend me there

And obviously I empathize.

I also don't think that a relationship will cure my depression that's not what I'm looking for and in fact I'm very reluctant to the idea of starting a relationship when I feel depressed. But the truth is that rejection was a strong trigger to this depression and that makes the lonliness hard to bear. It would be easy (easier) if, since the depression was triggered by rejection, if I could imagine that a relationship could cure it. That would give me a clear goal. But I don't feel that way, I don't WANT to feel that way, and I don't think that would be a HEALTHY way for me to feel or believe. It is what it is but right now it is causing me a lot of pain.

that is my feelings exactly

i have always had depression but when i met a girl that i really liked and fell in love and turned around that it couldn't be that way - well.. it can make depression spread like wildfire :/

i feel like being accepted by someone would really help...

i fear getting close to people, even as friends..(im not even close with family..) so intimacy is something that - well i just dont do that - but im a romantic at heart and it would be nice to get past the intimacy block... maybe can even start making friends easier.. be able to be myself more... just because i would feel accepted and that people can accept me.. for who i really am :/

i"m introverted so it is hard for me to meet people... But I do not think I have a problem with intimacy. Once I know someone I find it very easy to be open with them. I shared a lot very quickly with my coworker and he with me... some of those details are what led me to believe he had interest in me. I was very ready to go forward and even to attempt to initiate it. Only the second time in my life I felt like my advances would be received well. Both times--wrong.

cant give up... everyone is wrong sometimes right..?
even the great inventors of the world got it wrong a few times before getting it right...
if they can keep trying after many failures and create such life changing inventions and come up with explanations about life.. i try to get a little hope from them that as long as i keep fighting and trying maybe i can get it right one day too

please say more about this dex....
what do you mean both times wrong..